With the inaugural Urbana-Champaign Mini Maker Fair just under a month away—APRIL 16!!—we have begun a serious ramp-up of activities. We also have made a renewed commitment to keep our friends, fans and followers in the loop, by posting here on our blog and to Facebook and even tweeting. To begin this renewed public activity, we want to tell you what we’ve been doing the last few weeks.

Location and Space:

The location for the first UC Mini Maker Faire is the Independent Media Center in downtown Urbana, Illinois. This building was originally a post office, and today is a pretty cool community space. It has room for maker booths, demonstrations, and general mingling. The IMC building is also home to Makerspace Urbana — one of the our host organizations (tours of their space will be happening the whole day, and probably some sort of hands-on workshop too). More details about the space and setup will be posted as we get them!

Official Endorsement from Maker Faire Headquarters:

We’d hoped to do a lot more publicity, but our official endorsement and permission from O’Reilly (the publisher of Make and Craft magazines) to use the Mini Maker Faire name took a while longer than we hoped. The wait has paid off — we are an officially sanctioned event!. This is pretty cool as it marks us as recognized participants in a greater community of Maker Faires and Makers!

Maker Recruitment:

We have (and still are) recruited local makers, and we’re looking forward to a fantastic event. There is a lot of work to do yet, but the real challenge is not getting caught up in all the projects people are doing. All of us committee members are Makers, too, so examining cool projects can distracting. Another exciting consequence of the selection process: it has made us aware of a much bigger local maker community than we previously imagined.

Speaking of the community — if you or your friends are Makers, and want to be involved let us know, it isn’t too late to participate either as a volunteer or potentially even find booths! Email us at ucmakerfaire@gmail.com.

Sponsorship:

We have some dedicated sponsors and we are actively seeking some more. There are various sponsorship packages available, and if you or your organization would like to sponsor this event, please email us at ucmakerfaire@gmail.com, and we’ll work with you!